


Monster Fudge

by Gimli_s_Pickaxe (orphan_account)



Category: Original Work
Genre: #Monsters need a hug too, Chocolate, Do not expect this story to make much sense, Eldritch Abominations, F/M, Human/Monster Romance, Modern Era, Some Lovecraftian Influence, Sort Of, pure fluff, story told in drabbles, sweets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24940147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Gimli_s_Pickaxe
Summary: Mika has always known that he was different. Nobody else gets sick from breakfast cereal or has a terrifying second form that sets most grown adults screaming, after all. But when a new arrival stumbles into Granny Kim’s sweet shop, he can’t help but wish for a miracle. Thus begins the grand courting of Miranda, as (mostly) documented by the lucky girl herself.Sometimes, Eldritch monsters just need a hug and a cup of chocolate. Just like the rest of us do.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 10





	Monster Fudge

1.

Mika Kim, at first glance, is nothing special.

He is the boy who works at Granny Kim’s Monster Fudge Sweets on weekday afternoons. He is quiet and mostly shy, and has that way of smiling up at people from underneath long, blond lashes that make most people want to ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks. He is slim, but not too lanky, with a riot of lemon-yellow curls so pale they look white under some lights. He is small for a boy of sixteen, but not so much that people are surprised when he tells them his age.

Sometimes people see him chat with Bill from Harvey’s Used Books. Often, he strolls along the little creek by the town by night, earphones dangling and a shy smile ready for everyone. ‘He’s a sweet boy, mind – just a tad quiet.’ That is what most people who know him say, when they are asked to describe him.

But, when one looks just a little more closely, just that one more step, there is something inexplicably Other about him.

Maybe it is his eyes. His eyes, which are an impossible shade of violet, the deep purple-red clashing violently with his pale, fine skin.

Maybe it is his shadow. How sometimes it is a little too long, a little too mobile, something stretching and clashing about its borders, even when there is no sun in sight.

Maybe it is the way he seems to shy away from daylight, those strange nightly walks that take him way out of the boundaries of their little, sleepy town. How, on some of those days, there are reports of something thrashing, Eldritch, horrifying to look upon, dwelling in the forest a little ways back.

Maybe – the way the sunlight catches upon a tooth a little too sharp to be human, the way one cannot really look at him for too long without developing a headache, the way no one has ever really seen him dine, or no one knows what he likes to eat. (Because, perhaps, human food had never really suited him.)

Maybe.

But that is not important. Mika is a sweet boy, and, well, the neighbors really don’t want to go meddling about in matters they don’t understand. And they are all truly fond of that sweet slip of a boy who appeared one day upon Granny Kim’s doorstep.

For Mika, that is more than enough.

2.

Mika had always known that he was different from everyone else.

No one else that he knew grew gnashing teeth at the back of their throat when eating, and no-one else got sick from eating breakfast cereal, either. He had gotten sick, heaving violently all over Granny Kim’s floor, a strange, viscous purple liquid leaking from his nose. After that, granny had always taken him to the forest to feed. He didn’t remember much of it; just hunger, unbearable and tearing him apart from the inside, then action, satiation, blackness.

He tried not to think much of it. He couldn’t _not_ feel it, of course, that suspicious thrashing underneath his skin that pressed persistently around his edges day in and day out. But he didn’t want to be forced to see for himself just how different he really was.

The day his world fell apart, he had just turned seven.

It had been a simple playground spat.

Although Mika didn’t go to school, Granny Kim still let him play with the other children sometimes, and Mika liked those lazy afternoons spent spread-eagled on the soft sand, dangling by his legs on the monkey bars, listening to stories from the other children about school.

“I don’t think it sounds that fun,” Mika had announced, after hearing all that they had to say. “I don’t want to have to sit in front of a table all day and be forced to learn things.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re a freak,” said Bert. Bert was a big boy in the fifth grade, and he walked with a weird swagger that made him look like a drunk elephant. But Mika had seen Bert hit other children, and he knew it hurt to be hit, so he stayed quiet. “You’re that weirdo who lives with that old hag Kim.”

“Don’t call her that!” Mika cried. He didn’t like it when people said mean things about Granny Kim.

“I’ll call her anything I want, idiot,” Bert sneered. “No,” Mika said, standing up. He was angry. That writhing mass of somethings under his skin knew that, too. Mika didn’t know how much longer he could hold them in. But must he? Why couldn’t he just let go?

Bert punched him, then everything was pain, and Mika let go. He didn’t remember much after that.

Freedom, the feeling of rightness, as if his human skin had been a confining prison, way too small for him. He remembered Bert screaming in terror, the children fleeing the playground in a panic, wind stirring one of his many appendages, and a smile.

Later, he woke up in Granny Kim’s small apartment on the second floor of the sweets store, hands clammy with sweat and a sense of _wrong, too small, too fragile_.

“Shhh,” granny had said. “It was a bad dream.”

Mika hadn’t believed her.

3.

As time passed, Mika learned a lot more about himself.

He learned that he had two different bodies, that most people could not bear to look upon his other one. He learned that Bert had been right, that he was a freak, or at the very least that he was nothing human.

The realization was so horrifying that Mika couldn’t help but cry. Mika had been nine, at this point.

Granny Kim found him on the floor of their apartment, soaking the rugs with his strange, black tears, and gathered him into a hug.

“Granny,” he whispered between sobs. “I think I’m a monster. Am I a monster?”

Granny Kim, because she had always respected his right to know, did not try to mask the truth with a lie. “I suspect that you are not quite the same as us, Mika,” Granny said, rocking him gently in her arms, “but that doesn’t make you a monster. Your mother loved you. I love you.”

“But you’re family,” Mika said, petulant. “I don’t think anybody else loves me.”

Granny rocked back on her heels at that. “I have very good reason to suspect that your father had not been quite human.” Mika knew that story by heart: his mother, taken by sleep under a strange blue moon, pregnant the next day. So he nodded. “I think your mother was quite fond of him, by the end. You’ll find someone to love you, too, someday. You’ll find somebody to love.”

“Really?” Mika asked. He was of the age where Granny’s word was still something like law, and he hung onto those words like a drowning man hangs to his salvation. “Are you sure?”

“I promise, Mika. I promise.”

Granny’s eyes had been so soft that night, almost molten brown under the cheap electric bulbs.

But many years passed after that, and Mika grew older, his heart a little bit harder, and he began to believe Granny’s words less and less every year. It was alright, though. He had become Mika Kim, the sweet little boy at Monster Fudge, and he now had his own place in the world. And so that night became fainter and fainter in his memory, until he found he didn’t really crave that much for romance anymore, until he was perfectly, utterly content.

Until he turned sixteen.

Until he met Miranda.


End file.
